Originally Posted by rickair7777

Bad news and good news...

The Bad:
- You were old enough when you got the DUI that you should have known better.
- Any DUI pretty much counts the same for airlines, regardless of what it was reduced to.
- You will be banned from entrance to Canada (recent change to their laws), most airlines now require that you be eligible for entry into Canada.
- DUI plus recent tickets indicates a trend of flaunting the rules. I would need to know exactly when the tickets were to get a feel for how much of a problem it might be.
- The BUI/Public may or may not be a problem. Airlines may ask about arrests, and they may find them on background checks.
The Good:
- You weren't that old when it happened. After age 25 you start to wonder if they will ever learn. After age 30 you know that they won't.
- It was seven years ago.
- Since it has been > 5 years you can get "rehabilitated" by the canadian governement (ie pay them a bunch of money). This will take time, there's a lot of paperwork before you hand over the cash, so you should start this process immediately if you want to be a an airline or corporate pilot.
- If the BUI/Public arrest was truly a innocent error, then it should not be a problem, although it sucks that you might have to explain that on top of everything else.



- Since you were young, time is on your side...the longer you are clean, the better off you will be. That means choir-boy clean: not even a speeding ticket or illegal lane change. I can afford a moving violation, but you cannot.

- Ten years is about how long it takes for employees to maybe consider forgiving a DUI. It won't keep you from getting a CFI job so depending on how much rating training you need to do plus a few years as a CFI you should be past that point by the time you apply.

- Be aware that a few airlines may blacklist you for life over this. You will be going into the career with a smaller pool of potential employers than the average guy.

- It probably won't hurt to get it expunged, but that will NOT allow you to lie about on a federal background check conducted by an airline. The feds keep their own records which probably do not get expunged. See a lawyer in the state where it happened for that. Also note that non-aviation lawyers may tell you that employers cannot find out and legally cannot hold it against you after expungement...this is not necessarily true for airlines, which have access to federal records and federally required duty to perform a background check (federal law trumps state/local law).

- Be aware that if you lie to an airline and they hire you, they will probably not run a background check until AFTER you have been hired and started training. When they find out you will be fired immediately, and will have to report that to any future airline employer. You will pretty much be done with airlines forever.

- At any interview is it VITAL that you accept full responsibility, tell them what you learned and how you have changed for the better... and then shut up. If you try to make excuses or shift blame, they will show you the door.